Standardized measurement of physiological pressures using an air-charged catheter apparatus

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided for providing a standardized pressure value representing a transient pressure event within a region of interest within a living body. An air-charged catheter is configured to record pressure data representing the region of interest. A measurement assembly includes a parameter calculation component configured to calculate at least a peak pressure representing the transient pressure event and a time to peak pressure, representing the time necessary to reach the peak pressure, from the recorded pressure data. A standardization component is configured to calculate the standardized pressure value as a function of the peak pressure and the time to peak pressure. A user interface is configured to display at least the standardized pressure value at an associated display.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No.61/537,855, filed 22 Sep. 2011, the subject matter of which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to the field of medical sensing,and more particularly to systems and methods for measuring physiologicalpressures with an air-charged pressure sensing catheter apparatus.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Air-charged pressure sensing catheters provide a number of advantagesover more traditional water-filled or microtip pressure transducertechnologies. For example, air-charged catheters are relativelyinexpensive, easy to use, disposable, and significantly less subject toartifact. Due to these advantages, use of these catheters for pressuresensing applications has become increasingly prominent. For example,around seventy percent of the pressure transducers currently utilized inthe United States urological market are air-charged catheters.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a system isprovided for generating a standardized pressure value representing atransient pressure event within a region of interest within a livingbody. An air-charged catheter is configured to record pressure datarepresenting the region of interest. A measurement assembly includes aparameter calculation component configured to calculate at least a peakpressure representing the transient pressure event and a time to peakpressure, representing the time necessary to reach the peak pressure,from the recorded pressure data. A standardization component isconfigured to calculate the standardized pressure value as a function ofthe peak pressure and the time to peak pressure. A user interface isconfigured to display at least the standardized pressure value at anassociated display.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method isprovided for recording a standardized pressure representing a transientpressure event inside a region of interest with an air-charged pressuresensing catheter. The air-charged catheter is inserted into a region ofinterest. Pressure data is collected over a time period including thetransient pressure event. A peak pressure is determined as thedifference between a maximum pressure and a baseline pressure. Thestandardized pressure, representing a peak pressure that would beexpected for a water-filled catheter given the determined peak pressure,is calculated as a function of the determined peak pressure. At leastthe standardized pressure is displayed to an operator at an associateddisplay.

In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention, anon-transitory computer readable medium stores machine executableinstructions for providing a standardized pressure value from pressuredata representing a transient pressure event within a region of interestwithin a living body taken with an air-charger catheter. Theinstructions include a parameter calculation component configured tocalculate at least a peak pressure, P_(peak), representing a maximumrecorded pressure, in centimeters of water, during the transientpressure event and a time to peak pressure, T_(PP), representing thetime necessary to reach the peak pressure at the air-charged catheter,from the recorded pressure data. A standardization component isconfigured to calculate a standardized pressure value, P_(Std),representing a peak pressure that would be expected for a water-filledcatheter given the calculated peak pressure, such that:

$P_{Std} = {\frac{P_{peak}*T_{PP}^{1.184}}{T_{PP}^{1.184} - 0.03}.}$

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other features of the present invention will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art to which the present inventionrelates upon reading the following description with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a system for determining a pressure within a regionof interest of a human body associated with a transient pressure eventin accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 2 provides a graphical illustration of the calculation of pressureparameters from the recorded pressure for a given event;

FIG. 3 illustrates a methodology for recording a standardized pressurerepresenting a transient pressure event inside a region of interest withan air-charged catheter in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a computer system that can be employed to implementsystems and methods described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 10 for determining a pressure within aregion of interest of a human body associated with a transient pressureevent in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. The phrase“transient pressure event,” is intended to encompass any occurrencewithin or outside of a living body that temporarily alters the pressureof a region of interest within the body from a baseline pressure. Ingeneral, the alteration in pressure during a transient pressure eventwill be a temporary increase in pressure, but it will be understoodthat, in some applications, a temporary decrease in pressure canrepresent a transient pressure event. It will be appreciated thatdifferent regions of interest will have different transient pressureevents, and thus the range of possible transient pressure events willvary with the application intended for the system. In an exemplaryimplementation for a urological application, the region of interest caninclude the interior of a patient's bladder, urethra, or rectum, andpossible transient pressure events can include coughing, sneezing, orengaging in Valsalva maneuver by the patient. In general, the pressuredetermined by the system 10 will represent a peak pressure associatedwith a given transient pressure event, where a peak pressure is amaximum or minimum pressure associated with the event.

The system 10 includes an air-charged pressure sensing catheter 20 thatcan be at least partially inserted into a body of the patient, forexample, through an incision or a natural orifice, to monitor thepressure within the region of interest. In the air-charged pressuresensing catheter 20, a contact surface 22 of the air-charged cathetercan be inserted into the region of interest, such that a medium (e.g.,fluid, soft tissue, air, etc.) within the region of interest can exertpressure on the contact surface. The interior of the contact surface canbe charged with a small volume of air to allow for transmission of thepressure exerted by the medium to a transducer 24 located outside of theregion of interest. The transducer 24 measures the transmitted pressureduring the transient pressure event and provides a series of pressuremeasurements representing the transient pressure event to a diagnosticmeasurement system 30.

The measurement system 30 receives the pressure measurements from theair-charged catheter and transforms the pressure data into a form usefulto a human operator. It will be appreciated that the measurement system30 can be implemented as software stored on a non-transitory computerreadable medium and operating on a general purpose processor, dedicatedhardware, programmable logic devices, or some combination of theseelements. Further, while the measurement system 30 is illustrated as anintegral unit, it will be appreciated that the various functionsperformed by the system control can be separated into discrete modulesthat are spatially remote but in communication within one another.

The measurement system 30 comprises a data conditioning element 32 thatreceives data from the air-charged pressure sensing catheter 20 andplaces it in an appropriate form for analysis. For example, the dataconditioning element 32 can include one or more analog-to-digitalconverters to convert the pressure measurements into digital form,digital logic to eliminate obviously erroneous samples, and one or morefilters to process the data to remove noise and artifact. It will beappreciated, however, that a major advantage of air-charged catheters isthe relatively low level of noise and artifact that they provide, suchthat the filtering and artifact removal functions of the dataconditioning element 32 can be somewhat limited.

The conditioned data can be provided to a parameter calculationcomponent 34 that determines one or more parameters representing thetransient pressure event from the conditioned data. For example, a peakpressure, P_(peak), associated with the event, that is, a minimum ormaximum pressure reached beyond a pre-event baseline, can be determined.Similarly, a time to peak pressure, T_(PP), can be determined as theamount of time necessary to reach the peak pressure. In oneimplementation, this is measured as the time between the point at whichthe pressure reaches five percent of the maximum or minimum pressure andthe point at which the maximum or minimum pressure is achieved. Thecalculated parameters and the conditioned pressure data from the dataconditioning element 32 can be provided to a user interface 36 to bedisplayed to an operator.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, it has beendetermined that the pressure response of air-charged catheters differsfrom that of water-filled and microtip catheters. Specifically, thepressure response of air-charged catheters is overdamped relative tothat of other pressure transducers, resulting in a slight delay in thepressure response and a corresponding underestimation of the peakpressure. Since air-charged catheters are a relatively new technology,many of the standard values for diagnosing and monitoring pathologicalconditions in the medical fields were generated with water-filled ormicrotip catheters, and are thus difficult to compare to valuesgenerated by air-charged pressure sensing catheters. Further,water-filled catheters are still in use, such that values generated bydifferent diagnostic devices can be inconsistent.

To this end, a system in accordance with the present invention cancomprise a standardization component 38 that receives the parametersgenerated by the parameter calculation component 34 and produces astandardized pressure value that is consistent with pressure valuesgenerated by water-filled catheters. Specifically, the standardizedpressure value, P_(Std), is produced as a function of the peak pressure,P_(peak), determined from the air-charged catheter and the determinedtime to peak pressure, T_(PP). In one implementation, the standardizedpressure value is determined as a product of the peak pressure and astandardization value determined from the time to peak pressure, suchthat:

$\begin{matrix}{P_{Std} = \frac{P_{peak}*T_{PP}^{1.184}}{T_{PP}^{1.184} - 0.03}} & {{Eq}.\mspace{14mu} 1}\end{matrix}$

where T_(PP) is the time to peak pressure in seconds, P_(Std) is thestandardized pressure in cmH₂O, and P_(peak) is the peak pressure incmH₂O.

Once the standardized pressure has been calculated, it can be providedto the user interface 36 for display to an operator. The user interface36 is configured to receive pressure data from each of the dataconditioning element 32, the parameter calculation component 34, and thestandardization component 38 and provide the pressure data to anassociated display 42 in a form accessible to a human operator. Forexample, the pressure data can be displayed as one or more charts andtables at the display. The user interface 36 further interprets inputfrom a user at one or more input devices 44 to allow the operator tocontrol the operation of the measurement system 30 and the display ofdata at the display 42.

FIG. 2 provides a graphical illustration of the calculation of pressureparameters from the recorded pressure for a given event. The chart 50includes a vertical axis 52, representing pressure within the region ofinterest, and a horizontal axis 54, representing time. A trace 56represents the change in pressure recorded by the air-charged catheterover time immediately before and during a transient pressure event. Itwill be appreciated that the trace 56 illustrated in FIG. 2 issimplified for the purpose of illustration, and that actual pressuredata from a recorded event can be significantly more complex than thesmooth, symmetrical trace illustrated in FIG. 2. As can be seen from thechart 50, the trace begins at a baseline pressure, P_(base), prior to atransient pressure event. During the event, the pressure recorded by theair-charged climbs to a maximum value, P_(max), and returns to thebaseline pressure.

A peak pressure associated with the event, P_(peak), can be determinedas the pressure achieved above the baseline during the event, such that:

P _(peak) =P _(max) −P _(base)  Eq. 2

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, it has beendetermined that due to the overdamped nature of the air-chargedcatheter, the time necessary to achieve the peak pressure contributes toa clinical interpretation of the pressure recorded during a transientpressure event. To this end, a time to peak pressure, T_(PP), can bedetermined as the length of time necessary for the pressure to increasefrom five percent of the maximum recorded pressure, 0.05 P_(max), to themaximum pressure, P_(max). Once this value has been determined, astandardized pressure representing the event can be determined asdescribed previously.

In view of the foregoing structural and functional features describedabove, methodologies in accordance with various aspects of the presentinvention will be better appreciated with reference to FIG. 3. While,for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the methodology of FIG. 3 isshown and described as executing serially, it is to be understood andappreciated that the present invention is not limited by the illustratedorder, as some aspects could, in accordance with the present invention,occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other aspects fromthat shown and described herein. Moreover, not all illustrated featuresmay be required to implement a methodology in accordance with an aspectof the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a methodology 100 for recording a standardizedpressure representing a transient pressure event inside a region ofinterest with an air-charged pressure sensing catheter in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention. The methodology 100 begins atstep 110, where the air-charged catheter and an associated measurementsystem are initialized. For example, the air-charged catheter can becalibrated and a computer-implemented measurement system for thecatheter can be setup and prepared to record measurements from thecatheter. At step 120, the air-charged catheter is inserted into aregion of interest within a living body. For example, the catheter canbe inserted into a urethra or a bladder of a human patient.

At step 130, pressure data from the region of interest is collected as aseries of digital pressure values over a period of time including atransient pressure event. For example, the transient pressure event caninclude a cough, sneeze, or Valsalva maneuver by the patient thatchanges the pressure within the region of interest for a brief time. Atstep 140, a baseline pressure, representing the pressure prior to thetransient pressure event, can be determined from the recorded pressuredata. For example, the baseline pressure can be identified as thepressure prior to a known time of the transient pressure event or thepressure at a region of relatively constant pressure representing anextended period of time.

At step 150, a peak pressure representing the transient pressure eventcan be determined from the recorded pressure data. For example, amaximum pressure recorded during the event can be determined, and a peakpressure can be calculated as the difference between the maximumpressure and the determined baseline pressure. At step 160, a time topeak pressure is determined to characterize the time response of theair-charged catheter to the transient pressure event. To this end, thestart of the event is represented as the point at which the pressurereaches five percent of the maximum pressure, and the time to peakpressure is measured as the time between this point and the point atwhich a maximum pressure is achieved.

At step 170, a standardized pressure, representing the pressure valuethat would be expected from a water-filled catheter given the valueprovided by the air-charged catheter, is calculated as a function of thedetermined peak pressure and the determined time to peak pressure. Forexample, the standardized pressure can be calculated as the product ofthe peak pressure and a function of the time to peak pressure. Once thestandardized pressure has been determined, it is displayed in a formcomprehensible to a human operator at an associated display at step 180.

FIG. 4 illustrates a computer system 200 that can be employed toimplement systems and methods described herein, such as based oncomputer executable instructions running on the computer system. Thecomputer system 200 can be implemented on one or more general purposenetworked computer systems, embedded computer systems, routers,switches, server devices, client devices, various intermediatedevices/nodes and/or stand alone computer systems. Additionally, thecomputer system 200 can be implemented as part of the computer-aidedengineering (CAE) tool running computer executable instructions toperform a method as described herein.

The computer system 200 includes a processor 202 and a system memory204. Dual microprocessors and other multi-processor architectures canalso be utilized as the processor 202. The processor 202 and systemmemory 204 can be coupled by any of several types of bus structures,including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and alocal bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory204 includes read only memory (ROM) 208 and random access memory (RAM)21. A basic input/output system (BIOS) can reside in the ROM 208,generally containing the basic routines that help to transferinformation between elements within the computer system 200, such as areset or power-up.

The computer system 200 can include one or more types of long-term datastorage 214, including a hard disk drive, a magnetic disk drive, (e.g.,to read from or write to a removable disk), and an optical disk drive,(e.g., for reading a CD-ROM or DVD disk or to read from or write toother optical media). The long-term data storage can be connected to theprocessor 202 by a drive interface 216. The long-term storage components214 provide nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, andcomputer-executable instructions for the computer system 200. A numberof program modules may also be stored in one or more of the drives aswell as in the RAM 210, including an operating system, one or moreapplication programs, other program modules, and program data.

A user may enter commands and information into the computer system 200through one or more input devices 220, such as a keyboard or a pointingdevice (e.g., a mouse). These and other input devices are oftenconnected to the processor 202 through a device interface 222. Forexample, the input devices can be connected to the system bus by one orseveral parallel ports, a serial port or a universal serial bus (USB).One or more output device(s) 224, such as a visual display device orprinter, can also be connected to the processor 202 via the deviceinterface 222.

The computer system 200 may operate in a networked environment usinglogical connections (e.g., a local area network (LAN) or wide areanetwork (WAN) to one or more remote computers 230. A given remotecomputer 230 may be a workstation, a computer system, a router, a peerdevice or other common network node, and typically includes many or allof the elements described relative to the computer system 200. Thecomputer system 200 can communicate with the remote computers 230 via anetwork interface 232, such as a wired or wireless network interfacecard or modem. In a networked environment, application programs andprogram data depicted relative to the computer system 200, or portionsthereof, may be stored in memory associated with the remote computers230.

From the above description of the invention, those skilled in the artwill perceive improvements, changes and modifications. Suchimprovements, changes and modifications within the skill of the art areintended to be covered by the appended claims.

Having described the invention, we claim:
 1. A system for providing astandardized pressure value representing a transient pressure eventwithin a region of interest within a living body comprising: anair-charged catheter configured to record pressure data representing theregion of interest; and a measurement assembly, comprising: a parametercalculation component configured to calculate at least a peak pressurerepresenting the transient pressure event and a time to peak pressure,representing the time necessary to reach the peak pressure, from therecorded pressure data; a standardization component configured tocalculate the standardized pressure value as a function of the peakpressure and the time to peak pressure; and a user interface configuredto display at least the standardized pressure value at an associateddisplay.
 2. The system of claim 1, the standardization component beingconfigured to calculate the standardized pressure value as a product ofthe calculated peak pressure and a function of the time to peakpressure.
 3. The system of claim 2, the standardization component beingconfigured to calculate the standardized pressure value as the productof the calculated peak pressure and the ratio of an exponential functionof the time to peak pressure to the difference between the exponentialfunction of the time to peak pressure and a predetermined constant. 4.The system of claim 3, wherein the predetermined constant isthree-hundredths of a second.
 5. The system of claim 3, wherein the peakpressure is measured in centimeters of water and the exponentialfunction of the time to peak pressure is equal to the time to peakpressure taken to a power of 1.184.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereinthe parameter calculation component determines the peak pressure as adifference between a baseline pressure and a maximum recorded pressureat the air-charged catheter.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein theparameter calculation component determines the time to peak pressure asthe length of time necessary for the pressure to increase from fivepercent of the maximum recorded pressure to the maximum recordedpressure.
 8. The system of claim 1, the measurement assembly furthercomprising a data conditioning element that receives recorded pressuredata from the air-charged catheter and places it in an appropriate formfor analysis at the parameter calculation component.
 9. The system ofclaim 8, the data conditioning element comprising a filter to processthe recorded pressure data to remove noise and artifact.
 10. The systemof claim 1, the standardized pressure value representing a peak pressurethat would be expected for a water-filled catheter given the calculatedpeak pressure.
 11. A method for recording a standardized pressurerepresenting a transient pressure event inside a region of interest withan air-charged pressure sensing catheter comprising: inserting theair-charged catheter into the region of interest; collecting pressuredata over a time period including the transient pressure event;determining a peak pressure as the difference between a maximum pressureand a baseline pressure; calculating the standardized pressure,representing a peak pressure that would be expected for a water-filledcatheter given the determined peak pressure, as a function of thedetermined peak pressure; and displaying at least the standardizedpressure to an operator at an associated display.
 12. The method ofclaim 11, further comprising determining a time to peak pressure as alength of time necessary for the pressure to increase from five percentof the maximum pressure to the maximum pressure.
 13. The method of claim12, wherein calculating the standardized pressure as a function of thedetermined peak pressure comprises calculating the standardized pressureas a function of the determined peak pressure and the time to peakpressure.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein calculating thestandardized pressure as a function of the determined peak pressure andthe time to peak pressure comprises calculating the standardizedpressure as the product of the determined peak pressure and a ratio ofan exponential function of the time to peak pressure to the differencebetween the exponential function of the time to peak pressure and apredetermined constant.
 15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:calibrating the air-charged catheter; and initializing acomputer-implemented measurement system as to prepare the measuringsystem to record measurements from the catheter.
 16. The method of claim11, further comprising instructing a patient to perform one of a cough,a sneeze, and a Valsalva maneuver during the time period over which thedata is collected.
 17. The method of claim 11, wherein the region ofinterest is one of a urethra and a bladder of a patient.
 18. Anon-transitory computer readable medium storing machine executableinstructions for providing a standardized pressure value from pressuredata representing a transient pressure event within a region of interestwithin a living body taken with an air-charger catheter, the machineexecutable instructions comprising: a parameter calculation componentconfigured to configured to calculate at least a peak pressure,P_(peak), representing a maximum recorded pressure, in centimeters ofwater, during the transient pressure event and a time to peak pressure,T_(PP), representing the time necessary to reach the peak pressure atthe air-charged catheter, from the pressure data; and a standardizationcomponent configured to calculate the standardized pressure value,P_(Std), representing a peak pressure that would be expected for awater-filled catheter given the calculated peak pressure, such that:$P_{Std} = {\frac{P_{peak}*T_{PP}^{1.184}}{T_{PP}^{1.184} - 0.03}.}$ 19.The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, the measurementassembly calculating the peak pressure as a difference between abaseline pressure and the maximum recorded pressure at the air-chargedcatheter and calculating the time to peak pressure as the length of timenecessary for the pressure to increase from five percent of the maximumrecorded pressure to the maximum recorded pressure.
 20. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, the instructionsfurther comprising a user interface configured to communicate at leastthe standardized pressure value to an associated display.